ABSTRACT
The role of women was changed in the South as well as the North, as shown by the appearance of women war correspondents for newspapers in the South. The fact that these women stepped beyond the confines of their household gates is strong evidence of the alterations wrought by the Civil War both to gender roles and to ideas about who should have a voice in the public debates stimulated by newspaper reports. The Confederacy's some known female war correspondents have been consigned to the footnotes of history. Without a name to attach to the correspondence, some historians have perhaps seen no utility in examining the work of the Confederacy's women war correspondents. The Charleston Courier's editors were impressed by this letter from the woman who they referred to as "A Spartan Mother." The paper wrote, in response to Joan's initial letter, "We make no apology-none is needed-for publishing a portion of a letter the authors have just received.
